Justia Civil Procedure Opinion Summaries

Appellant Dameron Hospital Association (Dameron) required patients or their family members sign Conditions of Admissions (COAs) when Dameron provides the patients’ medical care. The COAs at issue here contained language assigning to Dameron direct payment of uninsured and underinsured motorist (UM) benefits and medical payment (MP) benefits that would otherwise be payable to those patients under their automobile insurance policies. Dameron treated five of AAA Northern California, Nevada & Utah Insurance Exchange’s (CSAA) insureds for injuries following automobile accidents. Those patients had UM and/or MP coverage as part of their CSAA coverage, and Dameron sought to collect payment for those services from the patients’ UM and/or MP benefits at Dameron’s full rates. Instead of paying to Dameron the lesser of either all benefits due to the patients under their UM and MP coverage, or Dameron’s full charges, CSAA paid portions of those benefits directly to the patients which left balances owing on some of Dameron’s bills. Dameron sued CSAA to collect UM and MP benefits it contended CSAA owed Dameron under the assignments contained in the COAs. The trial court concluded that Dameron could not enforce any of the assignments contained in the COAs and entered summary judgment in CSAA’s favor. After its review, the Court of Appeal held Dameron could not collect payment for emergency services from the UM or MP benefits due to patients that were covered under health insurance policies. Additionally, the Court found: (1) the COA forms were contracts of adhesion; (2) it was not within the reasonable possible expectations of patients that a hospital would collect payments for emergency care directly out of their UM benefits; and (3) a trier of fact might find it is within the reasonable expectations of patients that a hospital would collect payments for emergency care directly out of their MP benefits. Accordingly, the Court concluded Dameron could not maintain causes of action to collect MP or UM benefits due to four of the five patients directly from CSAA. However, consistent with its opinion, the trial court could consider whether an enforceable assignment of MP benefits was made by one adult patient. View "Dameron Hospital Assn. v. AAA Northern Cal., Nevada etc." on Justia Law

In 2015, Hahn filed suit, alleging that his mesothelioma was caused by exposure to asbestos at his job with the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency. During a deposition, the Agency's representative testified that Boeing manufactured the light rail vehicles the Agency used during Hahn’s employment and that Air Brake “designed, developed and built the braking system.” for those vehicles. He did not testify that any Air Brake product contained asbestos. About two months after Richard’s August 2016 death, his heirs sued the Agency and Boeing. Air Brake was not initially named as a defendant; the plaintiffs named “Doe defendants,” Later, Boeing produced documents indicating that Air Brake designed and supplied the brakes for Boeing’s light rail vehicles and that Air Brake specified the use of asbestos-containing brake pads. Within a month, plaintiffs filed an amended complaint substituting Air Brake for a Doe defendant, under Code of Civil Procedure section 474.1The trial court granted Air Brake summary judgment, concluding that plaintiffs could not invoke section 474 because they “knew or should have known” facts establishing a cause of action against Air Brake when they filed their complaint; their action was thus untimely. The court of appeal reversed. Compliance with section 474 is determined by the facts that a plaintiff actually knew at the time she filed the complaint, not the facts she should have known. View "Hahn v. New York Air Brake LLC" on Justia Law

A surgeon and his clinic sought a writ from the Court of Appeal directing the trial court to vacate its order allowing the survivors of a patient who died from a surgical procedure to amend their complaint to assert a claim for punitive damages. The Court of Appeal determined the evidence of the misconduct of the surgeon and the employees of his clinic that the survivors submitted with their motion for leave to amend, if believed by the trier of fact, might well support an award of punitive damages. Nevertheless, because the survivors did not move to amend within the time mandated by statute, the Court granted the requested relief. View "Divino Plastic Surgery, Inc. v. Superior Court" on Justia Law

While shopping at the Carmel Mountain Ranch location of Costco in San Diego, plaintiff Lilyan Hassaine slipped and fell on a slippery substance that she believed was liquid soap. Claiming serious injuries from the fall, she sued Costco and Club Demonstration Services (CDS), an independent contractor that operated food sample tables within the store. The trial court granted a motion for summary judgment filed by CDS, concluding that the company owed Hassaine no duty of care. In the court’s view, it was dispositive that CDS’s contract with Costco limited its maintenance obligations to a 12-foot perimeter around each sample table, and that Hassaine’s fall occurred outside that boundary. The Court of Appeal reversed, finding the trial court erred in concluding CDS’s contract with Costco delineated the scope of its duty of care to business invitees under general principles of tort law. Businesses have a common law duty of ordinary care to their customers that extends to every area of the store in which they are likely to shop. "While the CDS-Costco agreement may allocate responsibility and liability as a matter of contract between those parties, it does not limit the scope of CDS’s common law duty to customers. ... Breach and causation present triable factual issues here, precluding summary judgment on those grounds." View "Hassaine v. Club Demonstration Services, Inc." on Justia Law

Drinking water provided by North Edwards Water District (North Edwards) to its customers contained three times the legal limit of arsenic. Using funds earmarked for safe drinking water, the State of California (State) agreed to pay for North Edwards to construct a water treatment facility (the Project) to address this issue. In December 2013, Clark Bros., Inc. (Clark) was awarded the $6.2 million contract (Contract). But almost from inception, disputes arose between Clark and North Edwards. Ultimately in October 2014, while Clark still had three months to perform, North Edwards terminated the Contract. Clark sued North Edwards for breach of contract (and related claims); North Edwards cross-complained against Clark alleging similar theories. A jury unanimously found North Edwards breached the Contract and awarded Clark over $3 million in damages. Clark also prevailed on North Edwards’s cross-complaint. Under Public Contracts Code section 20104.50 (b), a local agency that fails to pay progress payments within 30 days “shall pay interest” on the late payment. Here, as it waited for money from the State, North Edwards frequently took 60 days or more to pay. Based on this statute, which was incorporated into the Contract, the court instructed the jury that North Edwards was contractually “required” to pay Clark within 30 days. On appeal, North Edwards contended the instruction was prejudicially erroneous because (1) section 20104.50 provided for interest on late payments, but did not make late payment a breach of contract; (2) the statute did not apply to State-funded projects; (3) Clark waived its claim by repeatedly accepting late payments; and (4) North Edwards was not required to pay Clark until it received reimbursement from the State for each payment claim. The Court of Appeal agreed with North Edwards’s first argument, but found the error was not prejudicial: the record affirmatively showed the verdict was unaffected by any instructional error concerning prompt payment requirements. In addition, North Edwards contended the trial court prejudicially erred in making several evidentiary rulings. Finding these unpersuasive, the Court affirmed the trial court's judgment. View "Clark Bros., Inc. v. North Edwards Water District" on Justia Law

Christopher Ross, a former prosecutor with the Riverside County District Attorney’s office (DA’s Office), sued the County of Riverside for whistleblower retaliation and disability discrimination after the DA’s Office allegedly demoted him and refused to accommodate medical issues in response to Ross raising concerns that the DA’s Office was prosecuting an innocent man for murder. During a deposition, the former district attorney who preceded then-District Attorney Paul Zellerbach, Rodric Pacheco, testified about a conversation he had with the district attorney who succeeded Zellerbach, Mike Hestrin. Pacheco testified that he and Hestrin shared the view that Zellerbach was one of the most unethical attorneys they had encountered as prosecutors. Ross subpoenaed Hestrin for a deposition about his communications with the unidentified County lawyers, as well as regarding advice Hestrin provided to Ross in Hestrin’s capacity as an official in the prosecutors’ union in which Ross was a member. The County moved to quash the subpoena, which the trial court granted. The trial court found Hestrin’s alleged communications with the unidentified County lawyers were irrelevant to Ross’s retaliation and discrimination claims, and that Ross could obtain evidence regarding his union rights from other sources. Ross sought a writ of mandate to direct the trial court to vacate its order granting the motion to quash and to enter a new order denying it. The Court of Appeal denied the petition as it related to evidence concerning Hestrin’s role counseling Ross regarding his union rights. The Court granted the petition as it related to alleged requests by the unidentified County lawyers that Hestrin alter his testimony regarding Zellerbach’s ethical character. “[A]lthough we agree with the trial court that the testimony is irrelevant to the merits of Ross’s substantive claims against the County, the testimony is relevant to Zellerbach’s credibility, and he will likely be a material trial witness. Testimony showing the unidentified County lawyers attempted to suppress or alter a witness’s testimony about the credibility of a material witness is also relevant to show the County’s consciousness of guilt.” View "Ross v. Super. Ct." on Justia Law

Plaintiff sued Adventist Health System/West and Hanford Community Hospital (collectively, Hospital), for a violation of the Consumer Legal Remedies Act (CLRA; Civ. Code, Sec. 1750 et seq.) and declaratory relief.Plaintiff received emergency treatment and services at Hospital’s emergency room in Hanford. The emergency room did not contain a posted notice or warning that a substantial EMS Fee would be added to Plaintiff’s bill on top of the individual charges for each item of treatment and services provided to her. Plaintiff alleged Hospital engaged in a deceptive practice when it did not disclose its intent to charge her a substantial emergency room EMS Fee.Hospital moved for judgment on the pleadings, which the trial court granted. The court found that although Plaintiff’s pleading adequately alleges Hospital failed to disclose facts that were known exclusively by Hospital and were not reasonably accessible to Plaintiff, the court concluded Plaintiff’s conclusory allegation that she relied on the failure to disclose the EMS Fee and thereafter received treatment at the Hospital does not plead the element of reliance with sufficient particularity.In an unpublished part of the opinion, the court concluded Plaintiff has not carried her burden of demonstrating the trial court erred when it denied her leave to file a third amended complaint. Thus, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Torres v. Adventist Health System/West" on Justia Law

The state sued several oil and gas firms alleging their participation in a multiyear conspiracy to manipulate the California gasoline market to the detriment of California consumers. The complaint alleged violations of the Cartwright Act, Business and Professions Code section 16720, and the Unfair Competition Law, section 17200.Defendant SK Trading, a South Korean corporation, sought a writ of mandate to compel the trial court to reverse its order denying its motion to quash service of the summons for lack of personal jurisdiction. SK argued that its limited contacts with California were insufficient to support the court’s exercise of specific personal jurisdiction. The court of appeal denied the petition. SK Trading’s contacts with California supported the court’s exercise of specific personal jurisdiction; it purposefully engaged in activities that should have led it to reasonably anticipate being required to defend those activities in California legal proceedings. SK Trading has not established that the assumption of jurisdiction over it is unfair or unreasonable. There was evidence that SK Trading controlled and facilitated key aspects of the alleged conspiracy. The operative facts of the controversy are related to that contact with this state. View "SK Trading International Co. Ltd. v. Superior Court" on Justia Law

Johnson & Johnson, Ethicon, Inc., and Ethicon US, LLC (collectively, Ethicon) appealed after a trial court levied nearly $344 million in civil penalties against Ethicon for willfully circulating misleading medical device instructions and marketing communications that misstated, minimized, and/or omitted the health risks of Ethicon’s surgically-implantable transvaginal pelvic mesh products. The court found Ethicon committed 153,351 violations of the Unfair Competition Law (UCL), and 121,844 violations of the False Advertising Law (FAL). The court imposed a $1,250 civil penalty for each violation. The Court of Appeal concluded the trial court erred in just one respect: in addition to penalizing Ethicon for its medical device instructions and printed marketing communications, the court penalized Ethicon for its oral marketing communications, specifically, for deceptive statements Ethicon purportedly made during one-on-one conversations with doctors, at Ethicon-sponsored lunch events, and at health fair events. However, there was no evidence of what Ethicon’s employees and agents actually said in any of these oral marketing communications. Therefore, the Court of Appeal concluded substantial evidence did not support the trial court’s factual finding that Ethicon’s oral marketing communications were likely to deceive doctors. Judgment was amended to strike the nearly $42 million in civil penalties that were imposed for these communications. View "California v. Johnson & Johnson" on Justia Law

Relator Gilbert Ellinger brought a qui tam suit on behalf of the People of the State of California against Zurich American Insurance Company (Zurich), ESIS, Inc. (ESIS), and Stephanie Ann Magill, under Insurance Code section 1871.7, a provision of the Insurance Frauds Prevention Act (IFPA). In January 2016, Ellinger injured his back while working, and he immediately informed his supervisor. The following month, Ellinger reported to his employer’s human resources manager that he had sustained a work-related injury and had told his supervisor about it. The human resources manager created a “time line memorandum” summarizing the conversations she had with Ellinger about the injury. She placed the memorandum in Ellinger’s personnel file. Ellinger filed a workers’ compensation claim. Magill worked as a senior claims examiner for ESIS and was the adjuster assigned to investigate Ellinger’s claim. ESIS denied Ellinger’s claim on an unspecified date. Magill later testified that she denied the claim because of a written statement from Ellinger’s supervisor in which the supervisor claimed that Ellinger had not reported the injury to him. When the human resources manager was deposed in November 2016, she produced the time line memorandum, which Ellinger’s counsel in the workers’ compensation action did not know about until then. Nearly eight months after that disclosure, in July 2017, ESIS reversed its denial of the claim and stipulated that Ellinger was injured while working, as he had alleged. Contrary to Magill’s testimony, her email messages showed that the human resources manager had emailed Magill the time line memorandum in March and April 2016, and Magill thanked the manager for sending it. Ellinger alleged that Magill’s concealment of or failure to disclose the time line memorandum violated Penal Code section 550 (b)(1) to (3). On the basis of those alleged violations, Ellinger alleged that defendants were liable under section 1871.7. Against each defendant, Ellington sought a civil penalty and an assessment of no greater than three times the amount of his workers’ compensation claim. The trial court sustained defendants’ demurrers without leave to amend, concluding defendants could not be held liable under section 1871.7 for any failures of Magill in the claims handling or review process. Finding no reversible error in sustaining the demurrers, the Court of Appeal affirmed. View "California ex rel. Ellinger v. Magill" on Justia Law